


AAARRRGGHH!!!'s New Job

by Okadiah



Category: Trollhunters (Cartoon)
Genre: AAARRRGGHH!!! is a sweetheart, Gen, Post-Finale, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-24 00:53:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15618828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Okadiah/pseuds/Okadiah
Summary: Now that Arcadia is safe once again after the Eternal Night, AAARRRGGHH!!! struggles to find his place in it. But one night he finds that there might be a way for him to live among the humans and still be himself too.





	AAARRRGGHH!!!'s New Job

**Author's Note:**

> This might be the purest, most wholesome thing I have ever written. Also, it was a pure, shameless pleasure writing AAARRRGGHH!!!'s name.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

It had been a long time since AAARRRGGHH!!! had done anything without Blinky by his side. Sure, there were the times when he’d been captured, and that one time he’d been killed, also the party at Claire’s, and, well, all the other times he _wasn’t_ with Blinky. But those didn’t count. Blinky had _been_ there. And now Blinky was with Troll-Jim searching for a new Heartstone and AAARRRGGHH!!! remained in Arcadia with Wingman.

And it was very quiet.

It wasn’t that AAARRRGGHH!!! didn’t help Wingman or have things to do. He did. But the things he helped with were human things, now that many of the trolls had left. He helped protect the Changeling babies. He made funny faces at them and rolled around to make them giggle. Many of Wingman’s friends asked if they could touch him and climb on him. They played games with him.

But he had to be careful. Careful about everything. He was big, so he had to hunch and crouch to make it into the human spaces. He was strong, so he had to be gentle. He tiptoed to avoid breaking things. He had to be quieter so he wouldn’t bother people with his loud voice. And when Wingman slept, AAARRRGGHH!!! was alone with only Dictatious for company, and he did not like Dictatious very much. He was not Blinky.

At night while Wingman slept, AAARRRGGHH!!! would wander around the town. Now that the humans knew about the trolls, he didn’t have to hide and creep in shadows anymore, and they’d all seen him fighting the Gumm-Gumms so they knew he was good. The humans who were still awake would look at him, sometimes wave at him, but before he could smile and wave back they usually hurried on.

But there was a group of humans he liked to watch. A group that was always out at night, working with big lights, strange machines, and who wore bright colors that made AAARRRGGHH!!!’s eyes hurt if he stared too long at them.

They used their machines to break things.

It had been the noise that had drawn him in, like trolls fighting each other. For a while he’d gotten his hopes up — that maybe there _were_ a few trolls left who he didn’t have to be gentle around. Who he could roughhouse with and be more himself. But it hadn’t been trolls. It had been a giant stone ball striking into the side of a building.

AAARRRGGHH!!! had watched the structure fall.

Surprise and alarm had raced through him. Humans didn’t like their buildings breaking. They hated when their things were damaged. Yet, these humans were breaking them, and no flashing police lights had come to stop them. No one yelled at them.

And they didn’t yell at him when he came to watch them every night either.

They knew about him. He’d seen them watch him where he lingered at the edges of the light, watching as the big stone ball swung and broke broken buildings. Watching as men with hammers went in to break walls or break big stones into smaller stones and use other machines to push and haul the mess away. AAARRRGGHH!!! always wanted to follow. There was some good food left in the rubble, but he doubted the humans would like him digging through it.

Sometimes though, when they weren’t looking, he would move the large metal pillars for them into neat little piles like he’d seen them do before. It took them so long with their machines, but he just picked them up and moved them, easy. Straightened the metal if it wasn’t straight. He couldn’t help himself one day and had fun playing with one, twisting and making shapes with it before it had broken in half and he’d hastily put the pieces back, hoping the humans wouldn’t notice.

Tonight was a quiet night, however. Their big machines weren’t moving, and the men in their brightly colored clothing and hats were gathered together in the light, talking something over. AAARRRGGHH!!! was curious since it was early and there was still a possibility that they might start working again, but he’d recently overheard one of the other trolls get scolded for bothering busy humans, and he did not want to get scolded.

He’d turned his back, considering other things he could do to pass the time when a voice called out to him.

“Hey, uh, big guy,” a man from the group said slowly, jogging a little to catch up. “We were talking it over, and we were wondering … you want to help?”

“Help?” AAARRRGGHH!!! said, stopping to look at the man, then the others who were waiting in the light. The man in front of him cast a glance at his friends before giving AAARRRGGHH!!! a tentative smile.

“Yeah, help. We’re trying to bring down that wall over there but our machine’s run out of juice. You’re pretty big, and you look strong, and I’ve seen you bend those support beams like pretzels. You want to break a wall?”

AAARRRGGHH!!! stared at the human in bewilderment. “Break wall?”

“Yeah,” the man said with a grin. “Break it. We’re a demolitions crew. We break things so other people can build new things in the space. After what happened with all those bad trolls—”

“Gumm-Gumms,” AAARRRGGHH!!! corrected.

“—yeah, those Gumm-Gumms. Well, there’s a lot of damage, and it’s our job to clean up and clear out any buildings that can’t be salvaged.” The man shrugged. “We’ve seen you around for a while, and if you’re looking for something to do tonight, we’d love to have some help.”

AAARRRGGHH!!! thought about it and moved slowly toward the wall. The humans stepped back to give him lots of space, but even as he lifted a fist he gave them plenty of time to tell him to stop. The man nodded encouragingly, and AAARRRGGHH!!! shrugged before thrusting his fist through the wall.

It went through easily, the weaker stone crumbling apart under his hand, and once it was all the way through, he wrenched it upward and broke the upper half of the wall to pieces. The sound of rubble striking the ground was familiar and satisfying, but he stilled and looked back at the others.

They were staring at him. Some of them were even gaping, and suddenly AAARRRGGHH!!! was _sure_ he’d done it wrong, that he’d misunderstood. But then the man who’d talked to him grinned again, bigger than ever.

“You tore that wall apart faster than our machines could have done at their best! Keep going!”

“Not mad?” AAARRRGGHH!!! asked, just to be sure.

“No! No, I’m thrilled! Hell, if there’s some way to do it, I want you on the team. Maybe there’s some way I can give you a job — pay and everything! I don’t know what a troll would want as payment, but I’m the boss. We could work something out.”

“Job?” AAARRRGGHH!!! breathed, thinking of what Jim’s mom did, and what Wingman did, and what Jim did. What he’d done as a warrior before no one needed him to be a warrior anymore.

A job he could do now. Work. Usefulness. Usefulness where he didn’t have to be careful or gentle or quiet. Where he didn’t have to hold back.

AAARRRGGHH!!! beamed, excited by the prospect. “AAARRRGGHH!!! do job!”

“Well consider this your interview, big guy,” Boss said. “Finish up with that wall. Then we’ll see what else you can do.”

AAARRRGGHH!!! was done with the wall in under a minute, tearing through it with his enthusiasm, breaking it down as he’d done many times to stone walls tougher than these in Trollmarket.

“I’ll be,” Boss said once AAARRRGGHH!!! was done. “Think you could do a whole building?”

“What building?” AAARRRGGHH!!! asked and Boss pointed to one in the next lot over. The other men were helpful and moved the little signs that AAARRRGGHH!!! knew from watching them usually surrounded the building they broke. He stared at it. “That building?”

“Yeah. Can you do it?”

AAARRRGGHH!!! laughed. “AAARRRGGHH!!! do it, easy.”

“Arrgh?” Boss said. “Is that your name?”

“With three r’s,” AAARRRGGHH!!! replied before he loped at the building once the men were clear, and threw himself inside. He laughed as he rammed around, careless and free. Dust filled the air, he made shapes of himself through the walls, and he was delighted when a few minutes later the building groaned and squealed before it came crashing down around him.

Shouts from outside the rubble reached through the fallen building, and after snagging some of the tasty soft wall stuffing he always saw the humans throwing away and shoving it in his mouth, he shrugged his massive shoulders until the weight shifted just right before climbing out. He shook his body, dusting off the debris from his fur just as Boss ran toward him.

“AAARRRGGHH!!!, are you okay?”

“AAARRRGGHH!!! fine,” AAARRRGGHH!!! said, eyeing another bit of wall stuffing and wondering if he could snag it before anyone saw. “What else?”

“What else?” Boss said with a laugh of astonishment as he looked at the other men. “He’s asking what else when he just took care of a week’s worth of work in five minutes. Okay, okay.” Boss looked around as he drew his hand down his chin. “How about breaking some of these bigger pieces into smaller ones so we can put them on the trucks and move them out?”

More crushing. More breaking. More happy smiles from the humans. AAARRRGGHH!!! couldn’t have asked for anything better.

So he set to work, smashing big chunks into smaller chunks. Moving heavy chunks onto the truck before letting the others shovel the smaller stuff he couldn’t gather with his big hands and fingers into wheelbarrows he could then lift and dump into the truck himself.

AAARRRGGHH!!! was snacking on all the wall stuffing Boss called ‘insulation’ — which he’d told AAARRRGGHH!!! he was more than welcome to eat — hours later when the sound of a bicycle racing toward them caught his ear. A sniff of the air told him what his eyes found later and AAARRRGGHH!!! grinned enthusiastically as he got to his feet.

“Wingman!”

“Hey there, buddy,” Wingman said as he dropped his bike on the grass by the curb and looked at him, then at the demolition site as if uneasy. “I, uh, heard that you’ve been over here tearing down some buildings?”

“AAARRRGGHH!!!’s new job,” AAARRRGGHH!!! said before turning around to display the brightly colored tarp some of the men had strung together and given him. Safety gear, they’d told him, so everyone would know he was there with them, and so no one would miss him as he worked. “AAARRRGGHH!!! demolition troll!”

“Demolition troll?” Wingman said when Boss came over too.

“Hey, you’re one of the kids that saved the town. You know AAARRRGGHH!!!?”

“Yeah, AAARRRGGHH!!! and I are best friends,” the boy said. “He’s my wingman.”

“Wingman,” AAARRRGGHH!!! agreed proudly.

“He’s amazing, I have to tell you. We’re months behind schedule and AAARRRGGHH!!! managed to do a week’s worth of work in a night. With his help, we might be able to catch up. Maybe even help the construction crew too. He just wants to eat the insulation in exchange.”

“Tasty,” AAARRRGGHH!!! said as he stuffed more in his mouth. “Soft.”

“Just like cotton candy, I bet,” Wingman said. “Thick, dry, insulating slabs of cotton candy.”

AAARRRGGHH!!! didn’t know what cotton candy was but he shrugged and nodded anyway. “Payment for work.”

“Well, actually that’s not a bad idea,” Wingman said. “I have been running dangerously low on VHS’s.” He faced Boss. “You really want to give him a job?”

“Hell kid, I’d pay him in more than just ruined insulation if I could. He could really help us out and get Arcadia back to what it was.”

“I have to admit, that would be nice,” Wingman agreed. “And trust me, he’ll eat just about anything. Paying him in food really isn’t a bad idea. I mean, if that’s what you want, AAARRRGGHH!!!?”

AAARRRGGHH!!! nodded at Wingman. “Like new job. Get to break things.”

Wingman chuckled and rubbed the back of his head. “That’s for sure. But it’s getting pretty close to dawn AAARRRGGHH!!! You can’t stay out much longer.”

“Could you come back tomorrow?” Boss asked.

“After dark.”

“Good, good. Are you staying with Mr. Domzalski? How about I text him the location we’ll be at tomorrow, and we’ll see you there?”

After Wingman and Boss talked, Wingman and AAARRRGGHH!!! began the walk home. AAARRRGGHH!!! was content and full, and his muscles felt pleasantly used after so long being careful and idle. He couldn’t wait to tell Blinky.

“So, you _are_ happy about this, right AAARRRGGHH!!!?” Wingman asked quietly as they walked together. “I mean, you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to.”

“AAARRRGGHH!!! know,” AAARRRGGHH!!! said to the boy. “But like helping out. AAARRRGGHH!!! happy.”

Wingman stared at him for a while, before he gave him a soft smile. “Well, I’m happy if you’re happy.”

AAARRRGGHH!!! grinned and patted Wingman on his head. “AAARRRGGHH!!! happy. Wingman happy.”

The little human chuckled, then smiled more brightly. “You bet we are. Now how about we celebrate your new job by doing something fun? How about — oh, I know! Let’s play some Go-Go Sushi! With the Baby Crisis and helping out around the senior center and running errands, it’s been a long time since we just hung out! How about it, Wingman?”

AAARRRGGHH!!! couldn’t think of a better way to end such an amazing night.


End file.
